Roots_ The Saga of an American Family - Alex Haley [86]
Listening more intently, he began to recognize the different tongues of those around him. Over and over, in Arabic, a Fulani was shouting, “Allah in heaven, help me!” And a man of the Serere tribe was hoarsely wailing what must have been the names of his family. But mostly Kunta heard Mandinkas, the loudest of them babbling wildly in the sira kango secret talk of men, vowing terrible deaths to all toubob. The cries of the others were so slurred with weeping that Kunta could identify neither their words nor their languages, although he knew that some of the strange talk he heard must come from beyond The Gambia.
As Kunta lay listening, he slowly began to realize that he was trying to push from his mind the impulse to relieve the demands of his bowels, which he had been forcing back for days. But he could hold it in no longer, and finally the feces curled out between his buttocks. Revolted at himself, smelling his own addition to the stench, Kunta began sobbing, and again his belly spasmed, producing this time only a little spittle, but he kept gagging. What sins was he being punished for in such a manner as this? He pleaded to Allah for an answer. It was sin enough that he hadn’t prayed once since the morning he went for the wood to make his drum. Though he couldn’t get onto his knees, and he knew not even which way was east, he closed his eyes where he lay and prayed, beseeching Allah’s forgiveness.
Afterward, Kunta lay for a long time bathing dully in his pains, and slowly became aware that one of them, in his knotted stomach, was nothing more than hunger. It occurred to him that he hadn’t eaten anything since the night before his capture. He was trying to remember if he had slept in all that time, when suddenly he saw himself walking along a trail in the forest; behind him walked two blacks, ahead of him a pair of toubob with their strange clothes and their long hair in strange colors. Kunta jerked his eyes open and shook his head; he was soaked in sweat and his heart was pounding. He had been asleep without knowing. It had been a nightmare; or was the nightmare this stinking blackness? No, it was as real as the scene in the forest in his dream had been. Against his will, it all came back to him.
After fighting the black slatees and the toubob so desperately in the grove of trees, he remembered awakening—into a wave of blinding pain—and finding himself gagged, blindfolded, and bound with his wrists behind him and his ankles hobbled with knotted rope. Thrashing to break free, he was jabbed savagely with sharp sticks until blood ran down his legs. Yanked onto his feet and prodded with the sticks to begin moving, he stumbled ahead of them as fast as his hobbles would permit.
Somewhere along the banks of the bolong—Kunta could tell by the sounds, and the feel of the soft ground beneath his feet—he was shoved down into a canoe. Still blindfolded, he heard the slatees grunting, rowing swiftly, with the toubob hitting him whenever he struggled. Landing, again they walked, until finally that night they reached a place where they threw Kunta on the ground, tied him with his back to a bamboo fence and, without warning, pulled off his blindfold. It was dark, but he could see the pale face of the toubob standing over him,